


The Heart of Stars

by stonecoldsilly



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier Is The Doctor, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28682325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonecoldsilly/pseuds/stonecoldsilly
Summary: Heartbreak, the TARDIS sings in warning, and the stars are only half a sad beat behind her.Rare, but not unheard of, for him. He opens his eyes again, consideringly, and stares into the gorgeous ripples of blue light in her column while he thinks.Jaskier is the Last Lonely God, and there is a Vortex of Fate drawing his attention.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75





	The Heart of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> for flor and chamby, who really revved me up! <3
> 
> *no in-depth knowledge of doctor who needed for this one, i am skimming the wiki and selecting the most fun things to use tbh*

...

He overshoots it a little. All the worlds are abuzz with the whispers of the Lady of Space and Time, how she saves them from the White Frost, echoing up and down the timeline in prophecies and histories, and that sounds far too interesting to miss.

He will be in Posada, or he was in Posada at the wrong year, or just the right one. It’s not too far, and something about the resonance, the rhythm of the T.A.R.D.I.S beckons him to stop, rather than try again. 

She sounds almost wary, but that humming _fizzing_ feeling is pitched straight into his bones, and he cocks his head in harmony, listening to the shifts of pitch, eyes closed, swaying to the music of the spheres they both hear. 

_Death_ , they whisper, but that has never been much of a warning to one such as he.

_Destiny_ , and that is just another word for time. Cirilla is a fixed point, one that coalesces across the universe, and her father, the famous White Wolf ~~has been would be~~ will be worth the visit. 

_Heroics_ , she hums, and he laughs in response, dancing giddily round the control room. That is a given where he is involved, puffed up and preening at his own cleverness. 

_Heartbreak_... the TARDIS sings in warning, and the stars are only half a sad beat behind her. 

Rare, but not unheard of, for him. He opens his eyes again, consideringly, and stares into the gorgeous ripples of blue light in her column while he thinks.

Caution has never been his watchword, but the song of the T.A.R.D.I.S gives him pause. The walls of the control room contract, in one great breath, pressing closer comfortingly, and he will never stop being in awe of this wonderful living creature, reassuring her ~~master parasite symbiote partner~~ friend. 

She will be here, at the end of all things, and so will he.

If it breaks his heart… whatever lies outside the door must be truly _glorious_.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight once more, and chooses. 

Always the perilous unknown, always the adventure, always onwards, never looking back.

He _chooses_.

…

This regeneration is relatively new, and the body is well formed, big blue eyes and lips that naturally want to pout. He makes faces at himself in the mirror as he rifles through the wardrobe, racking his brain to remember what they’d worn on the Continent the last time he was here. 

He settles on a fetching blue number, marvelling at the cut in the mirror, blowing kisses at his own reflection in the polished metal walls as he sets back off through his Lady’s labyrinth. He loops around once again, though his steps are sure and should have taken him to the control room, but she leads him back to the wardrobe. 

The storage room is open, and he strides in, hands on his hips. She illuminates an old lute he’d won on Regar XII, and had noodled away at for a few centuries. It’s a bit dusty and worn, and he raises an eyebrow at the ceiling.

She pulses soothingly, and he mutters dire imprecations about her wiring being knackered before surrendering and slinging it over his shoulder. If she suggests a lute, then a lute he will have. There must be some reason for it, he wonders idly.

He’s still learning this body, and it has a tendency to hum while he works. Sometimes he jerks awake from daydreams of the Academy at Phobos, and the Singing Towers of Darillium, mind drawn along musical paths both fond and strange, quite without his permission. This one seems to love music, and what else can he do but love it too?

The T.A.R.D.I.S lets him back into the control room, and he trails a fond hand over her beautiful copper railings.

‘Wish me luck, darling?’ He asks his home, his love and Lady. Her console beeps and flashes in response, and then he steps out into the world.

…

Dust, is his first impression. Dust and spite. Not malevolence, not aching horror, nor trembling fear, just petty human dust and petty human spite, small and mean. Covetousness, and the daily toil of the blinkered masses presses low into the dirt that surrounds him. He stops, and examines his own thoughts.

He is free, and mighty, and has to work, even now, to escape the chains of Gallifreyan thinking that try to warp him. He will fail one day, he knows, but not today, nor for endless tomorrows. Sometimes fragments of their teachings try to resurface, but the traps are so obvious, so dark in comparison to his own usual thoughts, that they are easily dealt with thus far.

The daily toil of the _unliberated peasant classes_ surrounds him, he thinks carefully, as if testing his own thoughts. 

Sorrow, as well. The blood of the Elder races, battles and pogroms and pain, inescapable to the senses. 

The valleys are lush regardless, the morning blue and clear, and he sets off, lute in hand, to meet his own broken heart.

…

He finds the nearest tavern, and reasons that it must be a suitable stopping point for a Witcher looking for contracts. He has only met one before, in passing, and honestly knows little of their kind except what the locals will tell him.

He joins them at their tables, as charming and ingratiating as he knows how to be, and they seem to relish in whispering fearsome tales of butchers and monsters and freaks. He keeps his placid smile on his face even as his mind works frantically beneath the surface, thinking about the power of names and reputations on this little planet. 

They welcome him readily enough, the suspicions of strangers eased somewhat when they glance at the lute over his shoulder. Eventually he is cajoled into playing, and he tries to remember what little he can of the fingering, launching into a Shaggribatian drinking song that had got him kicked off seven different worlds in his youth. Apparently the sentiment doesn’t translate well, and his audience has the audacity to grumble at him. 

Then the White Wolf walks in.

Blood rushes in his ears, and it feels like the world crystallizes in the one-two patter of his hearts. Like the shattering of a filthy pane of glass, and now all he sees is clear and bright around him. 

Time judders to a halt and s t o p s. 

The lonely god stares at the golden motes of dust between them, and the burning of the sun caught in his hair, the flash of his wary eyes, the sadness, from one so young and so brave. 

A crescendo he didn’t even hear rising is now thrumming through his body and hearts and soul. 

He has loved mortals before, and loved them well, but now the whispers of heartbreak echo once more, and he feels the first prickling of fear, for himself, for the him-before and then him-after.

_Both_ his hearts feel weak and thready, just from the sight of him, the resonance of love travelling up and down the slipstream. If he does not love the Witcher yet, he will, or would, or has. 

Never cowardly, he thinks, and steels his nerve.

Time swells around him, and then the bubble of silence pops, and it is only a tavern on the edge of the world once more.

He bows jauntily, and begins his next song on the fly, improvising madly, spinning a song to catch a Witcher’s attention with what little he gleaned from the sullen audience now watching him.

Geralt of Rivia looks at him out of the corner of his eye. 

He is very good at knowing when someone looks at him, outclassing the Witcher by thousands of years of experience. And who would not look at him? He is the most interesting creature in a hundred leagues of this tavern, save the Witcher himself, and surely a Witcher’s keen senses will detect him.

He finishes his song, a string of nonsense he barely paid attention to, and is greeted with bread thrown in his direction instead of plaudits. 

He bends to pick it up, never one to waste a good meal, thoughts whirring faster than he can follow, the _potential_ of all the futures hovering on the brink, like a beautiful wave-function on the edge of collapse. 

He breathes out, just the once, waiting for the fall, and then the excitement of something _new_ is too much to bear. He practically waltzes over to the White Wolf’s corner, pinching a tankard along the way and working out his approach as he walks, nerves fizzing with anticipation, and it feels like _flying_.

He means to introduce himself honestly, he does, he has every intention of spinning grand tales of his travels to impress this road weary traveller, but cold teeth clamp down on the thoughts before they reach his lips. Some chill, some faint danger he has not guessed at, some gentle whisper of perilous frost rakes his spine. Something warns him to misdirect, to try and blend in, to keep his truths close to his chest, and he doesn’t know _why_.

He defaults to a bright smile instead and pushes away the matter to pace over later. 

‘I love the way you just… sit in the corner and brood.’ He says, approaching him as a man would any other man, and up close, his beauty is even more evident.

He has never been one to fall for just a pretty face, but his spirit alone would call to him, even in the middle of a crowd. Such _fire_ , such strength, fallen so low. Mere embers, where he can see the shape of the mighty defender he ~~would be was~~ will be, like a dissonant shadow overlaid on the true form.

Smoke and just-warm ash, where there should be fire and roaring flame. 

What else can he do but ignite it?

‘I’m here to drink alone.’ The Witcher says, and if it were any less vital, if the bees trembling in his stomach weren’t buzzing so furiously, then he would respect the man’s choice, and leave him in peace. But time is still in flux here, so he risks it. 

‘Good. Yeah, good. No one else hesitated to comment on the quality of my performance, except… for you.’ 

The Witcher stares, golden eyes caught in sunlight. 

‘Come on. You don’t want to keep a man with… bread in his pants waiting. You must have some review for me. Three words or less.’ He takes a seat, brimming with eagerness, waiting for the next move. 

‘They don’t exist.’ Geralt of Rivia says gruffly. 

‘What don’t exist?’ He asks, mildly, knowing he has the hook now. 

‘The creatures in your song.’

Maybe not on this planet, he thinks, but there’s no fun in spoiling the game too soon. 

‘And how would you know? Oh, fun. White hair… big, old loner, two very… very scary-looking swords. I know who you are. ‘

He smiles. He can’t help smiling on such a day. 

‘You’re the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia.’ 

Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken, the Father of the Lady of Space and Time, famous Witcher and renowned warrior, flees the tavern as though he owes the innkeeper a fortune. 

‘Called it.’

Silence falls in the room, a thin film of fright clouding up his senses. He has underestimated the usually fickle human memory, and watches as they shrink from the Witcher, from the unknown, from anything they don’t care to understand. It’s enough to make his blood boil, but he waits. 

He watches, considering, as a farmer stops the Witcher to press a contract upon him as he leaves. 

He watches, hallowing the meeting in his mind, the brief encounter that he should be satisfied with, but the way those people looked at the Witcher weighs on his mind. Worse was how it seemed so normal to him, as though Geralt of Rivia expected their reaction, as though that were his daily life. 

He watches, as the Witcher leaves, and people return to their merrymaking, a trifle more exuberant than before, now that the shadow in the corner is gone.

A little adventure, perhaps? The thought is terribly enticing. It’s not as though he has any pressing appointments. 

He sniffs dismissively at the patrons around him, gathers his possessions, and marches right out of the door to find the Witcher again. 

...


End file.
